[INDOLOGY] Dowry Murder: The Imperial Origins of a Cuttural Crime

Howard Resnick hr at ivs.edu
Fri Jun 23 11:59:35 UTC 2017


I have not read this book, but welcome learned comment on its basic argument.
Howard

> >From Amazon
> 
> The Hindu custom of dowry has long been blamed for the murder of wives and
> female infants in India. In this highly provocative book, Veena Oldenburg
> argues that these killings are neither about dowry nor reflective of an Indian
> culture or caste system that encourages violence against women. Rather, such
> killings can be traced directly to the influences of the British colonial era.
> In the precolonial period, dowry was an institution managed by women, for
> women, to enable them to establish their status and have recourse in an
> emergency. As a consequence of the massive economic and societal upheaval
> brought on by British rule, women's entitlements to the precious resources
> obtained from land were erased and their control of the system diminished,
> ultimately resulting in a devaluing of their very lives. Taking us on a journey
> into the colonial Punjab, Veena Oldenburg skillfully follows the paper trail
> left by British bureaucrats to indict them for interpreting these crimes
> against women as the inherent defects of Hindu caste culture. The British,
> Oldenburg claims, publicized their "civilizing mission" and blamed the caste
> system in order to cover up the devastation their own agrarian policies had
> wrought on the Indian countryside. A forceful demystification of contemporary
> bride burning concludes this remarkably original book. Deploying her own
> experiences and memories and her research at a women's shelter with "dowry
> cases" for almost a year in the mid-eighties, the author looks at the
> contemporary violence against wives and daughters-in-law in modern India.
> Oldenburg seamlessly weaves the contemporary with the historical, the personal
> with the political, and strips the layers of exoticism off an ancient practice
> to show how an invaluable safety net was twisted into a deadly noose. She
> brings us startlingly close to the worsening treatment of modern Indian women
> as she challenges us to rethink basic assumptions about women's human and
> economic rights. Combining rigorous research with impassioned analysis and a
> nuanced treatment of a complex, deeply controversial subject, this book
> critiques colonialism while holding a mirror to gender discrimination in modern
> India.
> 
> https://www.amazon.com/Dowry-Murder-Imperial-Origins-Cultural/dp/0195150724 <https://www.amazon.com/Dowry-Murder-Imperial-Origins-Cultural/dp/0195150724>
> 
> 



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